Celebrity chef, Daily Mail columnist and idiot. But I repeat myself.

Ah, the Daily Mail. The champion of the law-abiding citizen, the sort of paper that would surely regard someone boasting about how they wilfully endangered people to be beyond the pale and worthy of condemnation. Well, you’d think that, but then you’re not the Daily Mail executive who thought it would be a good idea to get James Martin (if you don’t know who he is, he’s celebrity cookery’s version of Alan Titchmarsh) to write their motoring column for them in which he does just that.

Like most wannabe motoring writers, James likes to think he’s the new Jeremy Clarkson. Of course, the Jeremy Clarkson he wants to replace isn’t the real one, but the crass, boorish and thuggishly crude version of Clarkson that exists in many peoples’ heads without any of the real one’s talent, wit, irony and self-deprecation.

So, when James gets asked to review the electric Tesla Roadster, you can predict that his article will contain the usual digs at ‘tree-huggers’ (yes, he uses that exact term) and cyclists inbetween his attempts to actually review the car, but then he ends with a quite stunning…well, confession is probably the best word:

Twenty minutes into my test drive I pulled round a leafy bend, enjoying the birdsong – and spotted those damned Spider-Man cyclists. Knowing they wouldn’t hear me coming, I stepped on the gas, waited until the split second before I overtook them, then gave them an almighty blast on the horn at the exact same time I passed them at speed.

The look of sheer terror as they tottered into the hedge was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my rear-view mirror. I think this could be the car for me.

Yes, a Daily Mail writer has just boasted about how he wilfully endangered other road users while out driving a car on behalf of the paper. Unfortunately, he doesn’t say exactly where this took place, but if you know of any cyclists who were driven off the road by an arrogant idiot in a Tesla then they now know who did it and can inform the relevant police force. So maybe by printing this, the Mail has done something for law and order.

UPDATE: Obviously in order to demonstrate their commitment to free speech, the Mail have now removed all the comments from the article, most of which were from cyclists pointing out his stupidity.